Every day I woke up on the train with a desire to feel the Sun. Instead, the day offered gray sky with hints of a snowstorm. The peaks of mountains were hidden, the distance made blurry by snow blowing hard outside but I felt irresistibly drawn to its other glories: the purity of the wind, the promise of imminent thunder, the morning whisper of birds. Fields of Canadian Goose. I never knew why the Canadian goose was a thing, now I know that there’s 1000s out there. Flying together in frigid weather.

As we made our way through the long curvy rail-roads of the North of Ontario into the Prairies of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the scenery reminded me of Alaska as seen on movies like Into The Wild (spoiler, Alaska is one of the 7 states that I’m missing off my 50 visited states list). Eminent mountains, frozen lakes, endless fields and many sightings of wild animals. Out here, I didn’t take many photos. I was content to simply be in the presence of this majestic landscape, treating those moments with the weightiness and value they deserve.

In every sight, wonder. In every step, curiosity. In every feeling, awe.

Imagine a scene — you’re standing next to thousands of migrating birds in a snowstorm with endless fields as a backdrop. Swans flutter in the distance like rising snowflakes. You feel part of something big, something that you’ve seen only in National Geographic.

What would you do if you find yourself in a moment like that? It takes time to sink in. We need to listen to what these moments are telling us. Standing in the snowstorm, I experienced nature’s intense power, while at the same time, I am reminded of its sublime beauty.

It made me think about hope, about what hope is and what it is not.

Over the past few years, chronic illness/pain has grinded me down just enough to feel on the true brink of hopelessness, a good few times. I never really understood hopelessness, until I was there. Where you’d take being dead for being alive, at any moment, because being alive like that doesn’t even feel like being alive. It’s worse than being alive because you’re suffering. suffering in ways that are difficult to articulate. It’s like being stuck in between being alive and dead. A place of purgatory. But the thing about purgatory is that whilst you feel an emptiness. You don’t realize what a dark place you’re in until you get out and you can see again. Change happens. But it can happen literally overnight. Like it did for me. Even though we’re taught change usually comes over time.

Today the train ran 5.5 hours late. I’m not sure how, but I think it’s something to do with freight trains. This meant that we had a knock on effect on how little time we had in other stops. We had a quick stop with surprise wifi in Edmonton. It was just enough time and wifi to quickly post photos i had accumulated on instagram, and a brief update for Facebook and Twitter so my mom knew I was still alive.

As I write on Facebook, a FB memory appears that stops me in my tracks. It really brings it all back. A few years ago today, I was leaving JFK airport after a YOLO road trip. It was the end of summer after gaining a life-changing diagnosis, which i had spent mostly running away from. I still remember this moment with crystal clear precision, what I was wearing, the smells, the reactions. I can play back most of that summer memories like as if on tape. I left the USA thinking I might not ever make it back. I cried. I felt sorry for myself. I didn’t believe it was true.

But friends banded together across Sandy Island, then the country… and then across the globe! sometimes I was throwing up too much or too weak to talk. But we kept going. Friends donated time, money, connections. Strangers sent mail, hundreds of photos. All in the hope to save my life or at least make me more comfortable and show support.

I told myself that if I ever get through this, that stuff would be different. There was still so much I still needed to see, so much time wasted, so much to do such as i wanna see my friends kids grow-up, and other friends grow in their confidence and careers and homes. I created a bucket list to help.

I wish I could tell you that the 5 years since have been easier. They haven’t. Even just under 3 weeks ago I was in the Emergency Room with suspected clots. Needles, needles, needles, so many needles, fevers, infections, a never-ending-headache, severe mucositis, so-much-pain, anti-nausea drugs that results in weeks of lost memories, teeth issues, corneal damage, a slate of other issues a little too graphic to write about, crazy painful out-of-nowhere leg cramps…

…all bumps along the road. But these past 5+ years have been really good to me (outside of the health stuff).

I do feel more and more slowly ‘normal’ with every year that passes, despite wanting it to come quicker, and gaining newer or older issues along the way, some weeks are really truly crippling bad – but the good out-weights the bad ones now. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get back to my old self. But maybe that’s just as well?

Because here’s the thing, as Mark Brown said in his lecture on hope: hope cannot be transferred like a credit card balance. The hope that we feel for someone cannot substitute for the despair and grief and anger and sadness that they feel for themselves. (I learnt this the hard way. ) So, to make hope happen we must first understand what it is and secondly understand why it might be absent. To understand its absence we must understand what depletes it, what stunts it, what pours salt upon its roots and what blights it when and if it ever flowers.”

I never would have ever believed that people would have come together for me in the way that they did in my times of need.

I realise that sometimes we need these long quiet intervals when we can drift ourselves away a little bit from the current. To gain some perspective. To see how far we’ve come, because sometimes when you’re in the dark, it’s hard to see how strong the current has been. Plus it’s always the best feeling in the world is coming back.

This morning as I sat looking up at the sky in the glass carriage, I saw uncountable stars. The wind in the valley murmurs at the approach of the sun and I find myself fixed on the single small spark of Venus as the stars silently surrender to the light. The first light of day finds my eye and we are connected.

Today, standing here with the mountains, the first light suddenly feels like the. first. light. and I breathe it in with both soul and senses. Here we can remake the world by understanding the world in all its messy, horrific, amazing glory.

A couple of years ago I was on a plane from NYC to the UK because I was dying.

Today I’m on day 3 of 4, on a train crossing the Canadian wilderness, a lil bit worse for wear (i need a shower pretty bad and i’m still harbouring all of my health issues) but I feel more alive than I have in a very long time.

I’m posting this now as I’m not sure when I will have time before I leave on my WIFI free journey across Canada via train.

Via Rails # 1, The Canadian operates from Toronto to Vancouver. The train stops in Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Jasper, with several departures in each week. The 4466 km journey takes 83 hours. The Canadian travels throughout the night. The journey aboard “The Canadian” is considered one of the worlds most spectacular train trips. Breathtaking scenery displays every minute of the way between Toronto and the Pacific Coast.

I’ve been pretty excited and quite nervous for this part of the trip. Partly because of the pressure I have added to myself to try and get a good half-a-PHD 1st draft out ready for 3rd year in October (Massive GULP). And the pure boredom I am worried I might experience. But this is good. I rarely sit with my thoughts. mostly because I am scared of them. My mind wanders to my pain, to how long is left, failures, my lack of ability to hone my successes and use them usefully. Whether or not i am making any marks along the way.

But despite such morbid thoughts, repressing them doesn’t do me any good either. They eventually come out in depressing conversations at midnight over Facebook messenger or rants in emails to friends who casually asked how everything going. If I really think about it, I hardly ever allow myself just time to be BORED. to do, like, nothing.

We live such heavy lives full of constant stimuli, from never ending choices on Netflix, and a constant flow of tweets, 24 hour news rolls, people replying work emails at all hours of the night. It’s hard not to be able to have proper protected quiet time, that’s not connected. Part of this is my own fault. I LOVE being connected. Even if i don’t actively post anything. If I can connect to a free wifi connection, I will. I constantly check emails, which is the worst as I forget I’ve READ the email until it comes back to me like a dream a few days later that I never replied it! Then you end up reading emails which you can’t stop thinking about as it’s about work or something else.

Doing nothing is often boring, and boredom is often crazy-making. In a 2014 study, published in the journal Science, researchers reported that many people preferred self-administering electric shocks to doing nothing.

F. Scott Fitzgerald thought boredom was necessary for writing: “You’ve got to go by or past or through boredom, as through a filter, before the clear product emerges.” The poet Mary Ruefle speaks of “the vital necessity of wasting time, of loafing and doing nothing.” Two recent studies lend scholarly weight to such claims: People who have been bored demonstrate increased creativity, and are better at associative thinking than those who have just been relaxing.

Here we should celebrate our delight in tedium. Boredom seems to result in creativity only when given the right conditions. Yet at the same time, creative thinking is what makes boredom tolerable: A factory employee dreams up home redecorations on the assembly line, a salmon fisherwoman plans the evening menu while hauling nets, a medical salesperson decides in a meeting to start raising bees.
So what turns doing nothing into creative fuel? the best way to really use boredom is to allow our bored minds to wander freely and to pay close attention to where they go, like watching a Ouija board supply answers under our own fingertips.

one man’s cesspool of distractions is another man’s muse. Sometimes boredom serves as empty ground on which to build new ideas, while other times it acts as a guide to our true desires. You have to wait and see; above all, boredom is the master of the long con.

Research, like the path I am taking to it, is all about delayed gratification. And I think putting myself in the line of adventure, and beauty, whilst being trapped on a moving cart through the Canadian Landscape, being unconnected to the internet world, is the perfect way to be bored.

I have with me a bunch of change of clothes, some soda, Huel, Water, crisps, fresh fruit, sweetish fish and M&Ms, hummus, and carrots. My laptop with a spotify playlist I’ve created and downloaded. My laptop holds only 3 movies: Home Alone 1, 2 and 50/50. I have my 11,000 + already written garbage to start me off and I have 4 plastic folders rammed with essays and articles on information design. I have 5 hours of audio of discussions on patient leaflet designs and experiences. A book all about making a house. And a book all about pain. and endless downloaded PDF research papers across a diverse series of information.

And I hope that this should be enough.

The train makes multiple stops, and spends long periods of time in specific stops such as 3 hours in Jasper! So I am looking forward to that.

As always, I’m living on bonus time. Here I have some time, and if I use it well, it will be more than enough.

To adventure, to making time, to boredom, to hope, to friendships and love, to taking risks, and to life and living — but most of all, here’s to being and *feeling* alive.

Throughout our lives, we will come to find ourselves in a lot of different places.

A lot of different rooms.
A lot of different corners.
A lot of different wheres.

Those wheres will be unexpected. They will surprise us, scare us, change everything, change nothing, and break our hearts.

I’ve found myself in some pretty amazing wheres, and some pretty devastating places. But one of the constants was having the opportunity to be part of Postmasters Gallery, and to continue to feel like I am part of their huge art family.

Furthermore, outside of art, The Postmasters Family helped save my life… and helped me get back onto the path of trying to live my life. See Postmasters aren’t just a normal gallery. They’re everything and more. They’re community, they’re bravery, they’re hope, they’re protest, they’re US.

In 2008, I got to chance of a lifetime. I had decided the previous summer (2007), whilst working with steadfast ambitious & economically supported college-aged Americans, that I needed to catch up with my life and career ambitions. And my career ambitions was to be an artist and to live and work in NYC. Preferably in a gallery. This was no small-feat for an under confident, working class kid from Doncaster, UK (DONX!).

I worked at a bookies and at a toy-shop part-time during term-time, whilst praying to the art gods that I’d get my artworld NYC summer. I did anything to make sure I could afford to go.

I remember exactly where I was when Magda of Postmasters Gallery said she’d meet me in person with the chance of getting to be Postmasters’ intern the summer of 2008. I was sat with my friend James Cotton in the Graphic Design-Apple suite at the old art campus. It was a super sunny day for the winter and the sun was blinding through the large windows. I just-re-read that same email, over & over again. I still have it archived even though I no longer have that email address (at hotmail.com?!).

I remember being incredibly nervous. I think I was practically mute for the first 2 weeks of being at Postmasters. But I learned so much.

I learnt around 26 years of Postmasters Show history, and art history in the making, as I was set to digitalizing their whole archive. Endless slides to be scanned, and amazing write-ups of artists in ArtForum, NYT, Art In America, et al – of still practicing, artists who have since disappeared, but a theme emerged.

These shows were often groundbreaking, urgent, courageous, some genuinely funny, ahead of the curves. New Media Art shows before new media art was accepted as it is today (though we still have ways to go with this medium). Women artists equally represented, and mostly – it still felt contemporary, and alive and represented the values that Magda and Tamas have sought to bring to the artworld their whole life.

I also learnt how to send invoices via fax (though still not into faxing), I met some of the coolest artists who continue to inspire my practice today, about art museums collections & how they buy art for them, at one point – I was left manning the whole establishment for a week?! and I learnt loads from Magda and Paulina’s experiences and ideas.

I was properly schooled that summer I was at Postmasters. I remember leaving after my last shift and I walked down to 9th Ave, and had to search for a working pay-phone to call my mom because I felt so sad I was leaving this amazing thing I had sort of been apart of for a short time. I left that summer with my heart heavy but inspired.

I got back to the U.K. and art school felt kind of boring after that experience. I had to do something. Magda taught me that literally, anything is possible, even starting from scratch, along as you have perseverance, some people and community who can support you.

So my friends and I started our own lil’ artspace called CAKE (rebranded CAKE Everyone). We were a small space above a bar on West Street, Sheffield, UK. We lasted around 2 years and we learnt loads and had so much fun. But the thing is, I took everything I had learnt from Magda & Postmasters, and I put it into action in Sheffield – and invested it back into our local community.

I am still employing these lessons from this time into my life and practice.

Now, it would be easy to say – I became, like, an awesome artist, or got lots of gallery jobs… but because i’m not very smart or that talented, that didn’t really happen (and that’s ok!). But the year after I graduated was HARD. I nearly lost my own belief. But Magda offered hope and advise on the end of emails. That really helped me push through what I thought was a dark time…

Then things started to work out… I got a residency at SITE Gallery, I was working freelance as an illustrator, doing some university lecturing… I came over to work a summer in Boston/New Hampshire in the U.S.A. but I had been feeling poorly for a good few months before I went… tired beyond belief, coughing up blood, endless nosebleeds, bone-pain, flu-like symptoms, drenching nightsweats.

And on the 21st August, everything changed. I found myself sitting in front an oncologist at General Mass Hospital. With my YMCA boss, 3,000 miles away from home. The doctor cleared his throat a few times and told me it looked like Lymphoma… Cancer. He told me, if it was time-sensitive and I didn’t get it sorted then I would die.

Well. As you can imagine, that wasn’t the news that I was expecting. I didn’t tell my mom for weeks (I was only 24). I felt ashamed, I don’t even know why. I thought it couldn’t be true. I googled the odds every-single-day. My boss kept telling me I needed to go home. The only person who I decided to tell who I didn’t work with — was Magda.

Because Magda was a person I knew I could trust, and always has a no bullshit take on everything but has an aabundance of empathy too.

After a crazy 32 U.S.A. state roadtrip (yolo!) Magda & Tamas put me up at their place, Magda cooked me an amazing breakfast before I left the USA for unknowns at home, not knowing whether I’d make it back again.

But the story is more complicated.

Magda nearly saw me go under. A few times.

I just had no energy. I laid in bed. Feeling sorry for myself. I was in pain. I was really sick. I couldn’t even watch Netflix. But Magda & Paulina would send reassuring tweets and emails and I slowly kept it together.

I worked harder at building my art-practice than on anything in my life, though it never felt like work. I devoted myself to it, though it never felt like sacrifice. I am also endlessly grateful. Those years gifted me experiences, skills, lessons, and friendships. I would not be me without them.

Many forget that it’s a rare privilege to find something you care about so deeply and be able to make it your life.

I had struggled to get back, but my heart wasn’t in it in the same way. I simply craved a new challenge. It didn’t matter why — I couldn’t lead my life in the same way, and I had promised myself that I wouldn’t be caught without a plan if something happened to me again.

I realized I couldn’t have my old life back, but I also didn’t want it anymore.

So I decided to go into healthcare… radiotherapy & oncology! Of all things. But I’d kept all this secret from most people. It was furtive, shadowy work, and the secrets made my stomach ache.

But I reached out to M, and I hoped that she would still think I was an okay person.

The wild thing is, Magda still helped me through emails – giving me incredible advise and inspiration for my healthcare practice. To the point that I realized that I was still a fucking artist. I had got lost, but she never stopped helping me find the tracks back. I’m now doing my PhD combining all of my double agent status’ together. Just insane.

But here’s the thing about the Postmasters Fam., is that they don’t let you down.

Magda once said to me that we get dealt the cards that we get dealt, but we play them like they’re fucking Aces. She has taught me that experience is subjective. We get to decide what’s devastating, what’s beautiful, and what we do next. In the books of our lives, we are both protagonist and narrator. And narrators have incredible power.

In writing this, I thought a lot about the places that shape us, and how, in turn, we shape those places in our minds. Postmasters have really shaped my life, in so many ways.

As human beings living on earth right now, we find ourselves in a very particular where. The art-world mostly sucks, because it works for the 1%, lets not even talk about politics.

But this is something we can all help, maintain, and be a part of. Help sustain the legacy, help to make the future, help to secure a better history. Look down at your feet and decide what that means.

Instead of being afraid, I’m going to try to be brave. Instead of feeling regret, I’m going to focus on getting better tomorrow, and instead of hoping that someone else will say it or move it or mean it, I’m going to do it myself.

Postmasters has been there for us (in ways you might not even know yet!) so lets me THERE FOR THEM!

I’ve not blogged in ages. I keep reflecting, but it’s stored in hidden word documents on my laptop – sometimes making an appearance at a conference, or on my Facebook – in the safety of friends and not just the internet-public.

But I’ve been thinking about getting to 30. Alive. I really can’t believe it.

On the periodic table 30 is the element Zinc. Roughly one third of all metallic zinc produced today is used in a process known as galvanization. During galvanization, an object that is subject to corrosion, such as an iron nail, is given a protective coating of zinc. I like the idea that my new decade is started with the year of Zinc: an element that is most useful in trying to stop corrosion.

5 years ago, an event happened that changed my life. Some of you where there, and others have followed the progress reports. But, honestly, i think it’ll take a full ten years for me to understand the impact and outcome of that one event.

Life in many ways is like a paint by numbers book, where you can colour, one tiny bit at a time but within invisible lines. The whole picture emerges much later. Perhaps Steve Jobs said it best:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

A decade ago, today, if you had asked me today if my life would turn out the way it has done — I wouldn’t have been able to answer that question. In many ways, life has been so much better than I ever really thought it would be!

Getting to 30 isn’t really big news, but it’s a biggie for me, and ANY of my friends will vouch for me – I never thought I would make it to here. I thought this at high-school. I guess living in abject poverty makes you feel like this – like there’s no future. And this was even before I fell sick. But then when I did fall sick, I would look at what was happening to me and how i felt and thought for sure I wouldn’t be alive by now. At times, I actually didn’t want to live. Like, I just felt like I couldn’t live with this kind of pain – for the rest of my life – without someone understanding what this experience was doing to me with me.

So, I’m really grateful to be getting here.

Despite this being kinda big news for me, i’m surprisingly anxious about it all too. I still feel 21 in my head. I still get I.D’d for booze at bars & M&S when buying BucksFizz, and if I’m really trying it on, I can still get Teen cinema tickets at the local Odeon.

My life is that of an 18 year olds. I moved back home, have no kids, no pension, basically a few $ in savings, the worst credit history – ever. I’m still a student, albeit I prefer researcher now (PhD). But getting really sick in my 20’s kind of funked things up a bit. I lost time for making and meeting people and things. I lost confidence, and money and I spent a whole lot of it when I got it — YOLOing or trying to find cures for my fatigue (all didn’t work BTW).

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By societies standards, I’m not a success. And I can feel it. I should have *done more* by now. People my age are consultants and own houses, and head-teachers and more. And it’s hard not to compare yourself. But in my own standards (and I think this is what matters) I’m relatively happy with where I am right now.

I mean, I am alive. I do think about that a lot.

Confronting mortality makes you ask some fundamental questions of yourself and your relationships. It makes you a lot more honest with yourself. It forces you to say no more often, for you know the fleeting nature of life, the minuscule time we have on the planet and what matters is how we choose to spend it. And how you choose to act aswell.

But 30 years is a long time to have witnessed change and fragility. Over the past 5 years of ‘illness’, I realised that BEING alive and FEELING alive are 2 different things. And what I’ve learnt over 30 years is what Oprah’s words from her Golden Globes speech encapsulated:

“What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool you have.”

And it got me thinking about empathy, and dignity, and teams and Zinc. Rod is one of the most compassionate (& innovative) doctors I know. I first met him like 5 years ago. It was my 3rd time ever at a hospital appointment. I still hadn’t learnt how to “behave” in these situations (i think i still struggle with what to say and what not to mention even now). But I still remember our first clinic with clarity, exact words and phrases. He told me how he was going to treat/talk to me (like an equal). And it properly threw me. I thought about it for weeks afterwards. It was a weird thing to say. But it properly made me feel like I could trust him, that I (my life) was important. This phrase was further backed up by his actions, because in trying to describe what was happening to me, i described it more in how these symptoms was really hindering my life. And he was super intrigued by this. He’s the only doctor (except the ENT doctor this week who was genuinely concerned with my massive hearing loss and my quality of life/future) who seemed to gauge what was important to me. I noticed that when people didn’t hear me out, it made me feel more desperate.(That’s not to say everyone else I see or have seen don’t care… because that’s simply not true at all, but there’s a difference in acknowledging).

He, and a few of my HCP, inspired me to be the best healthcare professional I could be. I subconsciously learnt what was good care and what wasn’t as good as that. And now everytime I am with a patient, I remember what is important to me when I am in this system. And the differences in actions and languages. And I want to make sure people feel seen and heard. Feel like whatever they’re telling me that is bothering them in their lives, that it matters. That they matter. Despite whatever is happening. Because often people just want to be heard.

Many forget that it’s a rare privilege to find something you care about so deeply and be able to make it part of your life. For me, I realize that it makes sense that 30 is Zinc. I am so endlessly grateful. These years have gifted me experiences, skills, lessons, and friendships. I would not be me without them because these people: my friends, teams, colleagues, working together – have acted like Zinc.

They have provided me with a coating, that has helped to ease the corrosion of life (from art, to work, to learning, to sickness and more). And in doing so have taught me how to be Zinc too.

You will never regret offering dignity to others.

We rarely get into trouble because we overdo our sense of justice and fairness. Not just us, but where we work, the others we influence. Organizations and governments are nothing but people, and every day we get a chance to become better versions of ourselves.

And yet… in the moments when we think no one is looking, when the stakes are high, we can forget. It’s worth remembering that justice and dignity aren’t only offered on behalf of others.

Offering people the chance to be treated the way we’d like to be treated benefits us too. It goes around.

The false scarcity is this: we believe that shutting out others, keeping them out of our orbit, our country, our competitive space—that this somehow makes things more easier for us.

But today, value isn’t created by filling a slot, it’s created by connection. By the combinations created by people. By the magic that comes from diversity of opinion, background and motivation. Connection leads to ideas, to solutions, to breakthroughs.

The false scarcity stated as, “I don’t have enough, you can’t have any,” is more truthfully, “together, we can create something better.”

And going forwards in setting the tone to my next decade is just that. To be Zinc: to help, share, collaborate and support. To be compassionate and empathetic. I will do whatever it takes.

I just like to take this moment to say thank you to everyone in my life who have gotten me here too (from everything). I love y’all! Keep being awesome!

In my procrastination of trying to write up my methods section for RF2 (my next PhD barrier) I came across Jeff Bezos’s commencement speech from 2010. (Not super sure how I reached it in my click-a-thon).

But I found it to be incredibly important.

After my life got shook up when I fell sick, I had to change how I worked, how I lived to move around shitty symptoms that really brought me down. It made me question everything I was, and who I am, and where I was going. It hit me when I was on my way up in the intermediate art-world, and brought me tumbling back down to the ground, really hard – really unprepared for this new world – injured in so many different ways. Every time I looked at myself and my life, it was like looking at a mirror that had been cracked a bunch of times. I’m still not over it all.

At times, I feel more broken than I ever was, but I feel at different times and in different areas I have gained so much more. One area is in personal growth. Whilst I’m still trying and learning to be a better person (and sometimes failing,) I realized that I WANTED to REALLY be a better person. I had no idea how I was being supported years before I fell sick, and even still to this day, where I felt incredibly stupid for taking it all for granted.

Some days I literally feel like I’m dying, and with this came a fear of what would be my “legacy” (this is such a loaded and over-the-top word). But what do I want to leave behind? What do I want my work to be? We spend so much of our time at work, doing work – of all kinds – that it makes sense that we should try and enjoy and make the world a better place than what we found it in. This doesn’t have to be a grandios project – we know it often only has to be the smallest thing that can make the greatest of differences. Listening. Offering to help someone out. Introducing yourself. Donating to charity. To giving someone a helping hand up. The list is endless.

Bezos’s speech really resonated with me, and I think some of his words are good markers. Especially when the road is rough, and rocky, and risky and dark. So I hope these bits I’ve chopped up here – help you.

In 1986, Jeff Bezos graduated from Princeton with a degree in computer science. In 1994, he founded Amazon.com. He was literally selling books from his garage. In 2010, he went back to Princeton to address the graduating class about the difference between gifts and choices — a profound reflection on reconciling being smart with being kind, an illusory choice many “successful” people feel like they have to make.

Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life — the life you author from scratch on your own — begins.

How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?

Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?

Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?

Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?

Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?

Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize?

Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?

Yesterday I went to the Drawing Matters Symposium in York. It was a day of inspiring talks and presentations, all grappling with drawing and its pros and cons. I even met a couple of healthcare professionals (a nurse & a physio) using drawing in their PHDs – as a critical tool too, not just a “wellbeing” tool*

There was a particularly interesting talk from an educator about drawings role in primary education, and how a lack of teachers understanding of drawing and time to do it/teach it (all documented in Ofsted reviews every 3 years) is affecting how people later on in life construct and evaluate knowledge. This then, of course, systemically affects every area we work in – from government policies, to leadership, to how things are designed.

They also showed how drawing also helps bilingual kids learn english. So drawing can help bridge across two different languages, two different paradigms. Enhance collaboration and share practices!

But the knowledge thing got me thinking about the healthcare system.

I’ve been trying to make things to help showcase people’s work within radiotherapy & beyond and I’ve been *secretly* developing a framework/workshops to teach healthcare students (maybe even staff) to be and think creatively.
The workshops are designed to be facilitate hands-on activities and discussion designed to build 4 essential creative muscles:

Seeing connections between disparate concepts

Developing an openness to new ideas

Building resilience through experimentation

Authentic reflection

These 4 things goes beyond what most people think of when we say creativity (no, it’s not just drawing, and it’s not just being “different”). In business, the creative mindset is highly sought-after because in this time of incredible uncertainty and rapid change, we need agile thinkers who can recognize patterns and interesting adjacencies, who naturally come up with person centred solutions not rigid-1-fits all master plans, and who are comfortable conducting rapid experiments to learn quickly. But it’s not as much appreciated in healthcare, despite needing the same kind of things as described above.

But alas, both healthcare and creativity is complicated.

For years, researchers have studied the “bias against creativity” in the workplace. University of Pennsylvania researchers coined this phrase for the tendency of creative ideas – and the people who espouse them – to be systematically diminished, disparaged, and discredited. This is interesting stuff. I’ve personally experienced it at school, across many places I’ve worked, including within the healthcare system too.

In recent work from Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, economists took a novel approach to innovation research by matching tax data to patent grants and applications for almost two decades in the US. They found that children of parents in the top 1% of the income distribution were “ten times more likely to become inventors than those in the bottom 50%.” This is significant, but perhaps not that surprising. The fact that you’re more likely to be successful if your parents have money isn’t the classical narrative of the American dream, but we know it’s true. This data is reproduced across the UK too.

The real surprise in the research was that invention was not correlated with creative ability. Instead, the degree of successful invention was more closely tied to environmental factors shaped by race, class and gender. The conditions children were exposed to at a young age in their neighborhoods and schools were the dominant factor in predicting future success in innovation. In other words, if children didn’t see members of their family or community engaging in non-traditional, innovative pursuits, the financial barriers related to access to opportunity were virtually impossible to beat. It didn’t matter how naturally talented someone was if they had nothing to model.

This makes me think back to the healthcare system and the transformational leadership role and HCP ability to enact change – whatever band/level/experience they have.

“Creativity” may not be the magic bullet – but creative people are. We know that intentionally or not, we are teaching the next generation how to be good foot soldiers, but not independent thinkers. More confoundingly, we know that the things we design (whether policies, products, systems, services, pathways, leaflets, etc) we will use in the future to communicate and convene, work and drive and govern will be built by a cosseted minority who have great access, but may not have the greatest ideas. And even if they do, they will not represent the diversity that they could have.

The experience of engaging in the creative process is profoundly transformative for people, especially young people. Moreover, it’s something where each of us can have outsized impact, just by simply being present.

So how do we do this?

First step: embed it back into education and learning.

Organization design – the attempt to structure systems to produce the outcomes we want – has been an established field for decades and healthcare is an amazing example of this. But here’s the thing – if you step back a bit, putting the two words “organization” and “design” next to each other is actually quite contradictory — the historical rigidity of a typical organization, next to the inherent complexity of the humans in that system, combined with the fluidity of design.

The healthcare paradigm is a tricky thing to navigate. It’s so ensteeped and rigid in empirical data and conservative methods that it’s hard to move things. Each coupling reveals a tension between chaos and structure; linearity and the non-linear; closed and open systems. Teaching people to be flexible and open – and fun – will show them their potential and feel more confident is being more critical and open about their world and collaboration around them.

Step 2: We need to Challenge the world around us.

At the 99U Conference, Liz Jackson, founder of the Inclusive Fashion + Design Collective said: “You never see a person on a cycling sign. You see one on a wheelchair sign. You’re saying you can’t use that object unless you are that person,” as she strode the stage with the aid of a cane. “We are disabled not by our bodies but by the world around us. It is a social construct. Disability is nothing more than a brand, the world’s ugliest brand.”

The stuff we ignore, or don’t try and change, creates our world – makes it harder for us to do our jobs, our lives and our patients lives. So by giving people the tools to critically think, to be open, to try stuff, we can literally make a difference. Equally, to repress what makes us unique is to artificially constrain all the potential we have to offer.

Step 3: Learning different ways of thinking to see from different perspectives

This is where a creative education works. Sometimes we all need to step back—be an artist or a healthcare manager— to find the most appropriate methods or solutions for the problems. You don’t have to do everything yourself, and it doesn’t always have to be a questionnaire or RCT. Equally, we need to increase awareness of our biases (which we have MANY in healthcare) and begin to advocate for change, Norregaard recommends creating a space with your team where it’s okay to talk through our biases.

Step 4: Believe in the learning loop.

We teach reflection well in healthcare, but I’d argue not in a way that’s super conducive to working life and transformation. We know that hospital Trusts that are transparent and have an open culture to mistakes, make less big mistakes overall, and have higher quality care outcomes. This isn’t by mistake. Reflecting upon what you do, enables you to work out where things can be better. But the trick is about making reflection natural, critical, authentic – actually empowering and enjoyable and not like a chore, it’s tick box excerise for just your license. Creative thinking does this.

However, even with all of this – we know culture doesn’t change over night and there will always be people high-up that can not see the benefit in such things. Expect anything worthwhile to take a lot of time, but in the meantime – the artist in me has taught me that if you don’t or can’t get a seat at the table – just bring a folding chair.

Having ideals is like having a compass that always points to your heart instead of your brain. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change. Likewise, if anybody wants to be about change, they need to create.

(*side note: I believe the arts are incredibly important in theraputics however that’s a whole different debate).

Tomorrow, I leave to go to Krakow, Poland with my bro & his girlfriend. It will be my 2nd time there. I can’t wait to eat more proper Polish food!

But I won’t be here in the UK for the last bit of the General Election campaign. I’ve spent a good few weeks knocking on doors, writing much too long facebook posts trying to debunk Tory lies and records for people, endless retweets, lots of leaflet posting. So, I’m both REALLY REALLY nervous for 8th June, but i’m also welcoming this social media break – where things can become a bit more distant.

So I write this post here, to ask you to consider helping Labour, or voting them in 8th June.

Last Monday, I was invited to the Houses of Lords reception to give a small speech. I was invited by Lord Professor Robert Winston, for Sheffield Hallam University – to talk about the “Hallam Difference” and what I think this is, and what it has meant for me. (File this under UNBELIEVABLE SMIZZ MOMENTS)

I talked about my challenging upbringing in poverty, that ended up including fleeing from domestic violence and homelessness. It included the low self-esteem I had ( & still have to be honest), the crushing imposter syndrome, the failing school *at the time* I came from to get to university, how I was the very first person in my family (& still am) to finish school and then go onto university and then later on after everything started going well, falling poorly and everything getting messed up again.

But within this was support networks that stopped me from falling into real despair, or getting lost in the cracks in the system. Hallam has outreach teams who worked with me to get to a university, a Labour government at the time had funded 1oo’s of policies and projects that stopped my life from being increasingly worse – such as Aim Higher, EMA, Sure Start Centres — all helped me stay on at school. Policies that helped my mom financially, a few more council houses that we don’t have at the moment (though it was bad then too). Maintenance grants so I didn’t end up in MASSive amounts of debt from university.

And once I got to university – the people made it everything. Hallam gave me the environment and the belief to build my confidence, to make friends for life; it made me feel seen / heard for the first time in my life. I felt like… I kind of… fitted in…. I was able to see a future for myself for the very first time in my life. Rather than just living day to day.

I was able to fulfil my whole life’s dream of being an artist and working in NYC in an amazing gallery, no less, with truly amazing people who became my mentors & inspire me to be better – and work with families of all kinds in Boston, doing art stuff – and when I fell sick, they paid for all of my medical bills when I was over there. Literally, they all came together to help to save my life.

When I came home, and I was angry at myself for becoming sick… for becoming broken… and not knowing how I could stop it, I just couldn’t figure out how to fix myself… my life had to be changed to adapt what was & contines to happen to me – and I was NOT happy about it. This jarring experience was eased when I met incredible NHS staff who helped me feel heard and understood in a way that really touched me. I can’t put into words how compassion makes you feel when you’re at your most vulnerable. And I realized I wanted to take all of these experiences, use my own skills, and give back that time and kindness to the NHS and its future.

And Hallam was there for me again.

I got to tell a whole room of important people at the Houses of Lords – people who can make a difference – how hard it is to get to university from precarious backgrounds. And just how my life has been transformed by these experiences.

I wasn’t sure how it was going to be recieved, but afterwards loads of people came over to meet me, and would share their stories of humble beginnings too. Which showed me there’s power in vulnerability sometimes.

But Why do I tell you all this? And what’s it got to do with voting and how we cast the vote?

Well, I’ve learnt that too often the world celebrates good heart without acknowledging the pain and hurt that shaped a person and their direction. Life may throw a thousand harsh storms your way but sometimes (not always) we can use them to grow and be better and be more good from it all.

You will be lost and unlost. Believe in your craft. Believe in your heart. Believe in your ability to become whatever it is you want to be and to overcome these challenges that lay ahead for us.

But we need OPPORTUNITY to help us to get there. we need support, we need networks, we need friends, we need hope to keep going – we need to be seen, and *really* heard.

And I genuinely believe that this Labour Government can DO IT for us. A lot of people are merely existing in the shadows. When I go convassing, some people say they’re not listened too – but here I am. Here is Corbyn – with a really truly compassionate (& costed) manifesto that really, really looks and understands some of the issues and problems and solutions to a myraid of issues within contemporary society and in all of our lives.

As my friend said tonight, watching Manchester Live makes me wonder at what point our counter-terrorism strategy finally evolves to include a massive investment in culture and the arts…

The Hallam Difference is a domino affect. Every act of kindness, I try (though sometimes I’m accidentally a dick) to pay forward. Every little action is big when we come together. Keep pouring your beautiful minds and hearts into what is right.

This week is a good week to flaunt your awesome. To show the world we’re compassionate, that we believe in people and not corporations.

That we are the difference in the world.

I will be watching the election progress from Poland at night, and I’ll arrive back to England to Exit Poll news. Let’s hope it’s better than 2015 – though as Ed Miliband said to me on the phone yesterday, “It’s the hope that really crushes you”.

It’s been months since I last wrote a post. Mostly because I’ve been sick, and mostly because PhD work, man. It’s never ending.

But the uncertainties that lie ahead for me, are bigger than ever for us as a country with the snap General Election in motion.

In 2015, you might remember me being super pro-Labour, super-dooper pro Ed Miliband for Labour Leader. I posted loads online, but I was deep in my radiotherapy & oncology studies. I was working every hour sent on clinical placement, and then on academic work & freelance stuff just to try and make ends meet because the NHS Bursary wasn’t ever enough to live-off anyways.

I didn’t go out and canvas or post leaflets, I didn’t have the time. But I didn’t even think we needed to do it anyways. So I just retweeted support. I had a proper echo chamber around me (though I learnt I had many Tory & UKIP voting friends… ), that I felt like the winds changed in our favour towards the end of the election campaign. I went to my polling station to vote – and saw people there voting for the first time in years. I assumed they’d all be for Labour – because, why not? It was an obvious choice. I felt like Ed could actually win this thing.

Then the results started to come in that night. I laid in bed, watching some sort of tragic accident, Snap-chatting friends – our sad faces, willing that it will change, it’s only 1am anyways? I went to sleep as I had an event to draw the next day wicked early.

I woke up at 6:30am to “sorry smizz” texts from friends who knew I was really passionate about it all, & saw on the TV the Tory Majority result. I just starred it out. My mom came upstairs and tried to take the mess out of me (we’re always winding each other up) by saying, “HA! Labour lost…”

And something came over me. I’ve never had this reaction to anything like this before. But I got chocked up. I stuttered that, “You don’t know what’s going to happen… PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE.”

We stared each other out, shocked at my uncharacteristic emotional outburst to – an election of all things. My mom immediately knew this was not something to laugh about. She tried to comfort me by saying it “probably won’t affect us…” But I knew it would, and that wasn’t the point. What about the people it would REALLY affect, badly?

But I was right. People have been, and ARE DYING because of this Tory government.

Social Inequality is one of the biggest causes of disease and under-productivity. It poisons our communities and changes peoples lives, forever, mostly for the worst. Over the past 6 years, I’ve seen young peoples futures get smaller & smaller, a united kingdom now fighting within itself into a more divided nation. A rhetoric that is neither good for EU leavers or remain believers. I’ve felt the difference 6 years of Tory ideology has made on the NHS, from both a staff member and a patient, and I know that it’ll get worse if the Tories stay in power.

I’ve been burnt by too many election outcomes over the past few years: 2015 GE, EU Referendum & USA’s presidential election… but i decided that maybe it hurt so much, because I hadn’t done *anything* to help change these outcomes?

I realized that I couldn’t just sit and share and write think-pieces about these policies and about why voting Labour is important, again. So when Ed Miliband emailed all the Labour Party members in the area, I knew I wanted to help and I emailed back.

I originally just thought I’d hand out some leaflets. I could do it when it suited me, work it around work, and I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. Because if anyone who knows me, knows, I get proper socially inept asking strangers stuff & especially calling people up on the phone.

But Ed called up, and we chatted & he sort of encouraged me to come along to a canvassing event. And to be honest, I thought it was going to be wicked hard but the team was amazing and kind. They let me shadow them until I felt like I could do it alone.

The groups of people that come together to canvas cover all kinds of backgrounds and ages of people – from young to old! All super interesting, smart, funny and kind, with incredible stories of their own. I’ve met some great people on the trail, even catching a drink and becoming Facebook friends with them.

I’m still nervous every time I go out and do it, but it’s kind of exhilarating! And feels fun. Even when you do it in the rain. I’ve learnt about how we do canvasing, using data, and how we develop it forward. It’s fascinating stuff to see it play out on a local level, as well as national level. I feel like I’ve also gained and developed some skills, which I know I can take to different parts of the multiple jobs and roles I do in real life.

But the most rewarding part – is getting to know your own community. I’ve lived in Woodlands pretty much all of my life, and when I was handing out leaflets — I had to google map where some roads where!

It reminds me a bit of my clinical work, where you’d do a first day chat with a patient about their treatment. It’s these opportunities that allow my patients get to offload their concerns and worries, or ask questions. And it’s often the first time they feel like they can ask a HCP these things before, or that they’ll be listened too. And it helps enable them to have a better care experience.

Canvassing is a bit like this, sometimes you get someone who has just been waiting to tell someone who will listen their issues. And in listening, and being kind, some of the work is already done for you. Its therapeutic for them (after all, most people just want to be heard), and you can help to signpost them in the right way. That just feels really rewarding, but it’s also hard – just like clinical work – hearing people’s stories of suffering and wanting to do the very best for them – but they’ve got to be part of that equation/solution too.

It’s also how Obama was able to win vital seats in 2008, because of people knocking on other peoples doors. I don’t think we can underestimate the power of listening and hearing in real life.

I’ve now mailed, 100’s and 100’s of leaflets and letters. And whilst I do it, people washing their cars and walking dogs, and kids on bikes will ask questions, and everyone is really friendly. It feels good to be part of this community in a way I’ve never seen before.

Additionally, I’ve proper increased my steps – which is a pro for a job where I’m sat down reading, drawing, writing and interviewing mostly. So going canvassing is good for general health & fitness too! What a winner? 😉

Over all, nationally, it’s hard to work against our rabid right-wing mainstream media. Journalists are meant to function like fire alarms, as in, it’s better to go off even if it’s just a candle. Whereas a lot of our publications make millions every year, & often not pay tax, to tell people the smoke they’re smelling isn’t smoke.

If that transparency and accountability is lacking, it’s our role to help people get the right information. And I feel like, regardless of the outcome, we’ve been part of something special and urgent.

There’s still a few weeks left of the campaign trail – I would urge anyone who is thinking about it – to get in touch with their local Labour Party (or whatever party) & get involved. Even if it’s just 1 afternoon (I’ve only done 6 canvassing events & a bunch of leaflet dropping) but it feels good to be part of something bigger than myself.

As Margaret Mead, an American cultural anthropologist, said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

And i think that sums it all up nicely.

Whatever happens after the GE, I feel even more encouraged to help more at local levels too. What an experience to have.

*Hope you guys will Vote Labour to save our NHS, schools, workers rights, the internet, democracy and even more that’s at stake in this election.*

Shout out to Ed Miliband and his team, and Doncaster councillors and other canvassers who are awesome.

Time slows when the lights are fluorescent and the days are punctuated by the rounds of the medical staff.

My head of studies for my PhD is a woman who is internationally known for her creative-design- person-centred approaches to dementia care. She’s an Occupational Therapist, with a background in art psychotherapy, and a PhD in using Art & Design methods in enhancing care in care-homes.

So I was super stoked when she asked me to be part of 1 of her many projects (some paid work on top of PhD). She invited me to be part of a project where we will design a Dementia friendly eye clinic. In real life.

Yesterday we had a meeting with some service users (I hate this term); a carer and his wife who has dementia. We spoke about all of their experiences of the eye clinic, from everything from leaving home and parking all the way through to leaving at the end.

There were many flaws in their care, some avoidable, some just a mistake, some just part of the design flaw within the pathway.

What I discovered when we looked back at our notes was that the things we could make better for people with dementia – would actually make these things better for EVERYONE who uses the service. How crazy is that?

I remember a few years ago, I had some crazy neurological stuff going on and it really effected my eye sight – I’d get like flashes of white light in my vision and I lost some of my peripheral vision. I had to see the eye doctor a bunch of times.

It was crazy just how unusual and difficult it was to go through that pathway. Eye drops that sort of itched, and we’d all sit staring at a wall, packed in like a crowded bus down a dim dirty coloured cream corridor. You couldn’t see anything clearly, but there was loads of small text leaflets teasing you to try and read them on the walls. Your eyes hurt from the light. When it was time for anyone to call you, you’d get up and not be able to see who and where they were calling you from. Then the actual examination of the eye is uncomfortable – you have to lean onto some medical equipment – and being small, my feet didn’t touch the floor, there’s no arms on the chair & you’r completely unsteady – and my neck hurt from stretching it out across a small table to sit my chin in the face of the eye doctor.

It felt undignified, and intimate and vulnerable and stupid all at the same time.

Once they made me sign to consent to something I couldn’t even read because of the eye drops.

And then when it’s all over, you leave – by feeling the walls around you – and trying to remember which way was out. When you finally make it back outside – the light is bright. But in an unfamiliar way – and navigating the world through blurred vision enhances a crazy headache of sorts.

That was my experience as a young-un. Someone who has pretty decent eye sight (or did).

Now imagine that experience for someone who struggles to convey pain, or issues. Who is confused? Who has learning difficulties, short-term memory loss. Who can’t read?!

I can’t imagine how disorientating and how scary and uneasy it must be.

I’ve been missing my clinical aspect of being a radiotherapist recently.

I think it’s the team work and the patients I miss the most. So I’m really looking forward to being part of a team, working with patients and their families, in a clinical setting again – but this time my main aim will be to come up with & test & prototype cool, person-centered creative & critical solutions — whilst at the same time learning some cool new researcher skills. Mostly how to get something you make, and apply it and embed it into the system. This is a skill I am really missing.

From just 1 meeting, I’ve already paralleled some similarities of things that could change within radiotherapy and the dementia care pathway — there’s just such a long way to go. But, I’m excited!

We already have 4 areas of focus, and ideas to prototype. It’s too early to share or know if they’re any good or useful. But I can’t wait to share with you guys our future work on this!

My productivity clock is weird. I can’t do anything of great magnitude in the morning. In the mornings I can’t write good essays, I find it hard to read and interpret big data-sets or new complex ideas and theories, I can’t really code websites, I find it hard to hold a proper conversation for at least an 1.5 hours after I’ve gotten up. So I leave my admin tasks to the morning and I usually distract myself on twitter. I’ll attempt my work, but will probably have to re-write it later.

By the afternoon, I feel my cogs working more smoothly. I can read those research papers and books with the understanding they need and deserve, I can begin to stare at the word document with that paper I’m writing. I can draw much better – and can debate things until the cows come home.

By 5-8pm I hit another fatigue lull, but if I nap on the train home or on my sofa in the living-room, I wake up raring to go.

From 9pm – 2:30am these are my golden hours of productivity. I write everything I need to do, I notice ideas and complex issues I missed in papers during the day, I draw more in that time than I have done all day. I complete works, I come up with my bestest ideas – I learn so much new stuff in this time — I learnt how to code websites and phone apps deep in the night. I’ve started many of my projects at this time.

But it’s annoying. I want to be that well productive in the day – and ALL day.

And I know I have so much to do. So how do I keep motivated as I do my PhD and all my other projects?

Over the winter holiday I read “Let My People Go Surfing” — Chouinard’s story is of his values and what led him to start Patagonia (the best outdoors store, ever). The principles that drive his company are really his own and he is a reluctant businessman. His big focus is on quality, durability and doing more with less. He is a committed environmentalist and believes businesses should be responsible for the damage they do to the Earth. Refreshing.

Quotes I liked:“Doing risk sport had taught me another important lesson: never exceed your limits. You push the envelope and you live for those moments when you’re right on the edge, but you don’t go over. You have to be true to yourself; you have to know your strengths and limitations and live within your means.”

&

“How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top.”

Before 2012, I worked so hard and made so many sacrifices, that when I thought it was all nearly over – I regretted the missing the really important things in my life. These quotes encapsulates some of the foundational lessons I learnt – or certainly felt – when I got sick, and my normal life was really hard to maintain for months and months. It drove me into the ground.

But surviving something like that, made me feel like I deserved to spend every day on vacation. But you can’t. You have to re-join the real world, and re establish yourself in some sort of way.

Now I need to be able to have a balance during this PhD. I’m finding it a bit hard. Some weeks I work insanely hard. Some weeks, I feel the guilt for not having achieved much. Maybe that’s a natural balance? But I think I’d prefer it to be more work consistent.

So in changing habits, and in hoping to sculpt something from my mess, and learning from Let My People Go Surfing values. I’m not going to spend any money on clothes, & unnecessary things like blankets and lights (which I seem to have a thing for!) I will only buy essentials such as food, and art/study stuff and train tickets – for a whole 6 MONTHS. Starting from tomorrow. This will help enable me to declutter my day, my procastination of online shopping when bored, from walking to shops and looking at stuff i don’t need. I want to begin to re-evaluate what I have.

And I need to write more.

I’ve journaled frequently in the 10 years. I kept a streak doing it for 106 days in a row over last summer. Every single day I’d write, I’m glad I did. And yet, most days, I don’t.

And I almost never let anyone see my writing.

Multiple theorists emphasize the importance of failure. I know this, but I’m not practicing it.

In the past year, I labored over at least a dozen items I planned to post publicly. I published only 1 or 2 good ones.

I sat down with Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, and it drove the point home even more strongly:

Whatever work you fear most, it’s likely the most important for you to be doing.

I fear writing because I fear I have nothing to say. I fear letting you see my half-finished thoughts because I fear losing your respect and attention. Most of all, I fear wasting your time.

But I know it’ll sharpen my thinking; I know it will push me. I hope it will connect me with people who like to think about, talk about, or work on the things I’m interested in.

So I’ll do it.

I will, at least once every week or 2, post something (brief!) that’s unfinished, unready, and unworthy of your time.